Practically Sanctified

John 15:18-27 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master ‘ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.
But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE.’ When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

There is a philosophical understanding of life that says all that we see and experience is not real. The task of life is to get beyond the senses to the reality that is found in the mind, in understanding. A hit movie was based on that premise called the matrix, where it showed that the world as we understand it is a complex computer program to which we are plugged into. The hero gets unplugged, and finds reality, and begins to set people free from the illusion. Sometimes we need to draw the curtain aside in our own lives, to be reminded of what it is all about. In Jesus’ conversation with His disciples before He was crucified, He did just that. Let’s have a look at three truths jesus reminds us of in this passage of John 15.

John 15:18 There is a world force with its own agenda. Don’t expect things to just work out. One of the funniest videos on AFV we have seen involves this little kid and a cat. In the first part you see the child being somewhat rough with the cat. Then you see the kid coming towards you down a path. Suddenly this cat jumps out of a bush onto the kids head and they both go flying off the screen. The cat had an agenda, and while it may have been based on poetic justice, the fact is the kid was bowled over. Have you ever been bowled over by life? The world system is in cahoots with the devil. The world system is not for you. It has an agenda of its own that focuses on destruction and hurt and pain and confusion. Some of us have been through a lot more than others. I have been working with a grandmother the last few weeks trying to help her teenage grandson who was living on the streets in Saskatoon. At the same time, she had a son missing in a large city in the US. She was stressed out and doing whatever it took to help find a resolution to the issues. I am glad to say that both the grandson and son are in Ontario and are getting some of the help they need. Do you wonder why finances are always tight, or why your job doesn’t seem to be worth it, or why some relationships are sour? You have to work at and fight for the things that are worth something in your life, because the world is opposed to you having it. Satan would have no greater joy than seeing you wallow in the problems and pains and distractions of life. His agenda is counter to what God wants for you. When you sign up to follow Jesus, you put yourself in the world’s way, and it will try to harm you. Jesus came that we might have abundant spiritual life. You can have that regardless of what is happening around you, because it is rooted in who you are in Jesus, not by how much stuff you have, or how people treat you. As you run this race called life, then, focus on that upward call of God found in Jesus, of becoming like Him in thought, word and deed.

John 15:21 The world’s agenda is intentionally anti-Christ and anti life. In other words, it is personal. Satan is actively trying to keep you down, to knock you off the course you are on with Jesus. Think of it as a game of football. Right now you may be in the second quarter, or fourth quarter. The game isn’t over until you see Jesus face to face, and it is not until then that you will be able to really stop this struggle. If you take the analogy of the game you understand that there are time outs and half times, where you can catch your spiritual breath per se. There are times when you get in the huddle and talk about the next play, but remember that the opposing team isn’t interested in playing fair. They are going to try to cheat you and hurt you and do anything within their power to set you up to lose. The times you have to gather together and worship are times to get encouraged and energized for the fight. These are times for you to better understand who you are and what God is doing in and through your life. The other team is going to be pushing all your buttons so you get distracted from the game and get your focus off of the goal. Have you ever seen a hockey player bug and chip away at another player, trying to goad him into taking a bad penalty or start a fight? He is simply trying to neutralize that player, and he is successful if the gloves drop and that player is looking at a major penalty. Life is doing that to you. It is trying to draw your eyes from the task of becoming more like Christ so as to neutralize any ministry you may have. Don’t give in to that – stand strong in the grace of God and focus on the task at hand.

John 15:24 The fight is about Truth, about the character of God. One of the reasons we don’t fit in the world is because we have morals, a sense of ethics that is beyond ourselves. That moral code is the character of God. Holiness is who God is, and what the work of the Spirit is doing in our lives. The easy way out of this battle is to avoid the battle. Ben has started wrestling with the Saskatoon Wrestling Club. It is bringing back a lot of memories from my high school days. In wrestling you are in the middle of a ring about 20 feet in diameter – just you and your opponent. You can win by pinning your opponents back to the mat, or by accumulating more points than the other guy by the end of the match. I remember watching a match where one guy was obviously outclassed. He spent the whole match backing away from his opponent and was called several times for leaving the circle, with points awarded to the other guy. In this thing called life we may find ourselves choosing that same route. We bob and duck and weave and just try to avoid being involved. We think we can survive better because we have no confidence in what we can do. Often that hesitancy gets us into more trouble than it solves. I have the dubious distinction of being in one of the shortest matches that I ever saw. I was up against a guy by the name of Allan Muir. He had a really strong upper body and I knew I should stay away from his arms. I didn’t have confidence in doing anything else, so right from the start I went to lock up his head and arms up high. All he did was grab me coming to him and flipped me over his hip and I was down for the count with no way out of his grasp. My hesitancy and fear of what might be overruled any sense of what I should and shouldn’t do. The fact is I had some skills, I was taught the moves, and at the very least I should have made him sweat before he won.

We have the truth in the Gospel, in the Holy Spirit as our Counsellor and Coach. We have strengths and gifts given to us by the Creator of all that is around us, and yet so often we think we can’t do it. We are afraid to even speak about our faith. What is at stake, though, are the lives of those around us. When we get into that avoidance and delaying pattern in our spiritual life, the people around us don’t see or hear the Gospel through us. They don’t see the divine as something tangible, something that can touch their lives. The world doesn’t want people to recognize the Truth of God. Satan doesn’t want people to recognize there is a morality, a code of ethics that is rooted in our creation. Because we were created in the image of God, that moral code is imprinted on our souls. People will deny it and do whatever they can to silence that still quiet voice from within, but part of the task you and I have is to uphold and promote that character of holiness. That is why I get upset with people who live with sin and don’t struggle against it. It is why I get so upset with myself when I blow it and get drawn off of what I should be and should be doing. Hold up the standard of holiness, the character of God, and rally to that. Don’t be swayed from that, whether the road seems easy or hard – never back down, never surrender.

Ephesians 6:10-20 “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”

Christianity has a long history. We may not be familiar with church history over the last 1900 years but we know the stories from the life of Jesus. We know the older Hebrew stories. When I say King David, what stories come to mind? Throughout the Scriptures are admonitions to remember. The Jewish feasts and celebrations were all about remembering key events from the past. We are called to make markers in our life so when we are going through rough times we can look at something tangible and be reminded of God’s faithfulness, even when our emotions are going haywire.

Today we want to remember our Canadian heritage around the world. Canada’s military has pursued peacekeeping activities and defended freedom internationally for a long time. Do we remember what the Canadians accomplished in wars gone by? What about WW2?

At the start of WW2 an agreement had been announced for a British Commonwealth Air Training Plan to be centered in Canada. This project alone trained more than 131,000 aircrew personnel for the Commonwealth. Canada contributed 72,800 pilots, navigators, aerial gunners and bombardiers, and flight engineers. These Canadians saw service in almost every theatre of war.

The First Canadian Army was the senior Canadian operational formation in Europe during the Second World War. By the end of 1943 Canadian formations in the UK consisted of three infantry divisions, two armoured divisions, and two independent armoured brigades.
Canadians were instrumental in the capture of Caen in 1944. They also won another major victory in the closing of the Falaise gap later the same summer. In the costly and difficult battle of the Scheldt estuary that autumn, the Canadians cleared the sea passage to Antwerp, already in Allied hands. In the bitter battle along the Hochwald Ridge in February 1945, Canadian losses were extremely heavy. This battle opened the final attack across the Rhine, which was a prelude to the unconditional surrender by Germany on May 7, 1945. A part of the army had been instrumental in Sicily and Italy before joining the rest of the Canadian army in north west Europe.

The reality of war is filled with violence and pain and death. But the heart of WW2 was a struggle for freedom. Freedom from oppression. Freedom from fear. Freedom to make choices in life. Freedom to live and to love. Isn’t that something worth fighting for, worth dying for? Many of us have relatives involved in the armed forces. My grandfather was drafted in WW1 but never got off Canadian soil before the war ended.

Many of our soldiers who fought did not return, and we remember them today. We remember that our freedom was bought at great cost, by those who paid the ultimate price. And they did not die in vain, for we all share in the freedom they brought us. The Global Symposium of Peaceful Nations recently named Canada as the most peaceful country in the North and Central America and Caribbean region and put it eighth place worldwide on its global peace index. Canadian ambassador Gary Doer accepted the award at the symposium in Washington last Sunday.

We look around today and we still have wars and rumours of war. Our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters are serving in Afghanistan and other places around the globe. Violence and death reigns in some of those places, but our soldiers go to bring Hope to the vulnerable; Help to the powerless. As I read testimonies and letters of soldiers from the past, they talk about their service in that currency of Hope; Hope that they would make a difference; Hope that because they are there in those places freedom may come.

Many of those soldiers had a faith they took with them. It wasn’t a faith based on an institution, but faith based on a relationship with a God of Hope. Jesus’ words recorded in the Gospel of John says that “If the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed!” So we remember those soldiers who have died in the pursuit of freedom. We remember the price that was paid for our freedom. Know this, though, that there is a place inside each of us that no enemy can touch. No one can put bonds or shackles or imprison that place. It is that place where the breathing part of us resides; the part of us distinct from these fleshy bodies;  the part of us that gives power and reason to these physical bodies; and at the core of that place resides a connection to the eternal. It is in that place that we can meet the Creator, the One that made us with a Purpose. Jesus said that He came that we might have life, life abundant. In the midst of war or peace, you can have a hope of the eternal – Jesus Himself said what is arguably the most well-known verse in the Bible – For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not die spiritually, but have eternal life.

So we remember and we pray God’s blessings on those gone before us, and for an enduring Hope in our own lives, on this Day of Remembrance.

That is the words I shared with the legion and residents of 2 seniors facilities this past week. There is hope. For you and I, though, the call goes beyond hope. You and I are on the front lines of another battle. We are called to become more like Jesus as we mature in the faith – what is at the heart of Jesus’ finished work on the cross? To overcome and destroy the work of Satan. He fought a spiritual warfare that dogged Him his whole life. From Herod trying to kill Him as a baby to Pilate allowing Him to be crucified, He was constantly involved in a spiritual war. We can’t even try to understand it as just a mental or spiritual conflict, for Jesus died in that conflict. It affects our physical world. So the call for us today is to speak, “Peace” and “Hope” to those around us, but it is also to roll up our sleeves and step forward ourselves to the front lines. The enemy is coming against us to take captives, to destroy. Who will stop them? A prophet of old speaking the words of God said, “I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.” There is a gap in our world today. The forces of hell array against us in this church, in this city, in this nation, and around the world. And the challenge is for you and I to step up and offer our services to the King of Kings. Soulchat.ca is now happening. Your Best You small group is on and another conference is slated for the last week in January downtown at the Bridge On 20TH. Christmas is coming. There are many other opportunities to engage the enemy. Follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, cinch up the armour of God and in pray, let us go out and stand in that gap.

Today is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are persecuted for their faith in Jesus. Their hope in God and their trust in His Word carry them through their daily battles. “You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in your word.” Psalm 119:114.